


Look What They've Done to My Brain, Ma

by rho_nin



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Merlin (Merlin), Episode: s04e06 A Servant of Two Masters, Evil Morgana (Merlin), Fake Character Death, Gen, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, King Merlin (Merlin), Manipulation, Merlin gets fucked over by Morgana, Mind Manipulation, Morgana Knows about Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Physical Therapy, Powerful Merlin (Merlin)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rho_nin/pseuds/rho_nin
Summary: Emrys has lost everything in a fight with his mortal enemy.  His speech, his movement, and his memory; all gone in one hit from a mace.  He’s only surviving with the help of his sole friend, Morgana, and with the hope of improvement.He’s sure of only one thing:Killing Arthur Pendragon will fix everything.
Relationships: Knights of the Round Table & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin & Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 86





	1. Prologue: Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin makes a choice and ends up in the hands of Morgana. It only gets worse from there.

Taking a mace to the chest was never fun.

Merlin fell, first to his knees, then to his cheek pressed into the dead leaves littering the forest floor. He fell asleep to the other knights calling his name… and awoke to being dragged around by Arthur.

It wasn’t so difficult to see how scared Arthur was; his deflection needed work, for one, and saying that he’d “seen worse” invariably meant the opposite.

“Definitely seen worse,” Arthur repeated, likely more for himself than his invalid manservant.

Merlin only laughed. “On a dead man.”

They distracted themselves with bickering about glory and cowardice, which was familiar enough that it didn’t take anything out of Merlin to contribute. He’d been called a coward by Arthur hundreds of times and argued the title just as many. More than anything, more than Arthur’s terrible reassurances and bedside manner, it impressed upon him that yes, he would get up and walk away from this too.

Or it did until Arthur admitted he was a good servant, and then he _knew_ things were bad.

“A servant who is extremely brave and incredibly loyal, to be honest.” His voice sunk with sincerity that Merlin didn’t want to hear. “Not at all cowardly.”

The night passed uneventfully, but when Merlin woke, he couldn’t move himself. He was… he _was_ dying.

He slipped in and out of consciousness, only really coming to when Arthur dumped him on some rocks and went, rather unwisely, into a narrow passage of stone to fight left-over bandits. He seemed to be winning, at first (Arthur always seemed to be winning, the prat) but more bandits came roaring over the hillside behind Merlin, and he was confronted with a choice: let Arthur fight gods-knew-how-many bandits alone, with only the aid of what Merlin had to guess was unreliable magic, or separate them.

He knew the spell.

He’d done it countless times before.

It was only a question of ability in the present.

The rocks fell and so did Merlin, back into unconsciousness.

* * *

He woke to Morgana dragging him towards a hovel which, if it wasn’t for the door, could have been part of the hillside.

Kicking was a lost cause, and so was his magic; if _Morgana_ found out, she could ruin everything he’d built. She _would,_ too. She was shrewd enough and cruel enough to do it well.

Half-heartedly, his wriggled in his chains, but there was nothing for it.

Morgana only scoffed and kicked open her door, still letting Merlin’s back suffer the forest floor and then the dirt of her hovel.

Merlin’s gaze swung wildly from one wall to another, taking everything in that he could. He had to tell Arthur about this, about Morgana’s hideout and everything that she had. What was she planning? Did she have some new secret weapon? What if she had some charm like she put on Uther—what if she planned to give it to Arthur? How would Merlin be able to tell?

From his right, he heard a gasp.

 _”Lord Emrys?”_ hissed a ragged voice.

Morgana dropped his hands, and Merlin’s head lolled on the ground.

“What did you say, druid?”

How many hostages did Morgana _have,_ anyway? There had to be limits somewhere, some line she wouldn’t cross.

“Nothing!” insisted the voice.

There was sound of Morgana’s skirts swishing against the dirt of her floor, then someone gurgling for air. Merlin couldn’t lift his head to see, and his face had landed in the opposite direction.

“I _asked you,”_ snarled Morgana, “what did you just _say?”_

“N—n’th’n—”

“DON’T LIE TO ME!”

 _Please lie for me,_ Merlin begged silently, not even encroaching on the mind-speak of the Druids. He hated himself for it, but he needed this secret. _Please lie to her. You don’t know me. Please give me this secret._

“Emrys,” whispered the druid. A cold stone dropped to the bottom of Merlin’s stomach. “He’s Emrys.”

Morgana laughed, high and cold. “Is that so? Then I suppose I won’t be needing _you_ any more,” there was a squelch, a gasp, and the sound of a body crumpling to the floor, “but I do wonder, Merlin dear, what I’ll do with _you_ now.” Her shoes came to rest behind his head. Strangely, his vision had started swimming. He wasn’t sure when it had started or how but… huh.

He was jolted from his thoughts by Morgana’s thin fingers gripping his jaw and wrenching it around to face her.

He couldn’t really process what he was seeing as Morgana’s face, though.

“Shall I kill you?” she whispered. “Or shall I find something better for you?”

_If those are my options,_ Merlin thought, _I hope you kill me. Don’t make me hurt my friends, don’t take my magic, don’t do something worse that I can’t even think up. Please, Morgana, we were friends once._

Her grip loosened on his jaw, shifting the side of his face. A white blur emerged from what was probably Morgana’s face; a smile, perhaps, predatory and gleeful. 

Her nails dug into his temples. Something wet beaded on his skin—blood, then. 

He didn’t have the energy to scream. 

“Don’t worry, Merlin,” she whispered, “I’m not going to be hasty about this. I’m going to have _fun._ And if you knew what I was doing, you’d wish you’d given me your loyalty sooner.” 

Something slammed into his forehead—an axe? A dagger?—and he gasped for breath because he couldn’t do anything else. Was his skin being torn apart, pulled away from his skull? Was she _gutting_ him!? 

But the pain went deeper. It sunk farther and farther into his skull until it _had_ to be splitting apart and every tiny bit of his brain was pulled from his cranium, scrambling the gray matter like eggs. More than pain, it was—it was—it was an _invasion._ Something was in his head that was _never_ supposed to be there, something that had to be out but—but— 

What did he need? 

What was in his head? 

Where was he? 

_Who_ was he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! For the first time in my life, I've been writing up buffer chapters, but I still can't guarantee any kind of schedule because I suck at schedules. I know this prologue is short, but future chapters will be at least double its length, since this is just setting the scene.
> 
> The title comes from a song by the New Seekers called _Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma_ and it's the only song of theirs that I know. But it is about things being twisted and warped and coming out wrong, which I thought suited this fic perfectly. I don't think I've ever named a fic after a song before!


	2. Chapter the Half: Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana conspires and thinks of how to dispose of bodies. Agravaine is appropriately aggravating, nearly enough to bring on a migraine.

Morgana sighed, shaking out her shoulders. Her hands felt a little too light, like she hadn’t eaten enough in the past few days, but with a spell as big as this one, it was to be expected. She sneered at the body below her—not just _Merlin,_ but _Emrys_ of all people—and kicked him in the ribs. He rocked unsatisfyingly, without even a grunt or a whimper. Pathetic. Her mortal enemy couldn’t even do her the favor of being in pain, of his face contorting from a jab or a spell, of gasping or crying out in pain.

She had him at her mercy now, lying on the floor of her hovel. She could do _anything_ with him. Make him kill for her, torture him… though that that wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding as it could be, if he didn’t know _why_ she was gutting him and sewing him back up.

But there was no ‘Merlin’ anymore. If she hurt the man at her feet, he would never know why unless she told him. And if she told him, he might—Goddess forbid— _agree_ with his past self. That was not an acceptable outcome. Besides, with Merlin gone, there was no reason to build him back up again. The best use of the empty husk beneath her would be hurting the rest of Camelot and the wretched commoners who surrounded her brother as weak shadows of knights that had come before them.

Something tripped one of her wards, and she peered out of a grimy window to see Agravaine trudging up the path to her door. He was next to useless, but an almost-useless spy in Camelot’s court was better than nothing at all. She yanked the door open as he was about to knock and scowled at him.

“Have you covered your tracks?” she demanded.

“Yes, my lady.”

“And left without drawing the notice of others?”

“Yes, my lady.”

She moved slightly to let him in, slamming the door shut as soon as his cloak was past it. “And this trade route that Camelot moved through. You are sure that not a single member of the court suspects your involvement in the betrayal of the king? As soon as you are revealed, Lord Agravaine, I have no use for you.”

“Not a one suspects me, my lady, I promise. Except,” his face turned sour, “the boy, Merlin.”

“Then I have saved you from your only threat,” Morgana replied. She kicked the body on the floor, which still moved only under the force of her foot and made no noises. “This was Merlin.”

Agravaine stared down his nose at the body, a smile slowly growing on his face. “So you have killed him, then?”

“No, Agravaine, I have done something infinitely better.” She lifted him with her magic until he hovered vertically in the air, still limp. With a flick of her finger, he started to rotate like a pig on a spit. “His mind is gone. All that made him Merlin is gone, too. We have his body to do with it as I see fit; the opportunity for torturing Arthur, who has always been strangely fond of his servant, is too good to pass up.”

She grasped his jaw, twisting it back and forth. There were a few scratches and blemishes, but Merlin had been in strangely good health for a servant. Perhaps that could be attributed to Gaius, the old traitor.

Now that torture was off the table, Morgana had to think up creative alternative solutions. Agravaine, of course, would be useless for that, too. He wasn’t good for much more than following instructions to the letter, and even managed to bungle that more often than not.

She _could_ just send Merlin back to Camelot, minus his memories and with whatever other problems she could cook up in the meantime, but that wouldn’t give her the slow-burning satisfaction of seeing another Pendragon king mourn himself into ruin. She _could_ send him to live with one of Camelot’s enemies as a cherished member of the court, which would take longer for Arthur to discover, yes, and had the added attraction of fabricating a betrayal. (Though it would divert suspicion from Agravaine to Merlin, that wasn’t really Morgana’s _job;_ if the shmuck couldn’t handle a little courtly dance of wits, he could hardly handle anything else.) She _could_ let him wander through the wilderness with no idea of how to care for himself, but the druids would get in the way of that too quickly for it to be of any real merit. Then again, having Merlin be spotted among the druids would be _another_ instance of betrayal, which was all too delicious to ignore.

“My lady,” Agravaine said, interrupting her thoughts, “if I may. Why didn’t you just kill the boy and have done with it? He hardly has any skills or knowledge worth keeping him for.” He grimaced. Morgana felt a worm of disgust grow at his squeamishness. “Especially not now.”

She laughed. It wasn’t the laugh she’d use with her sister, or the laugh she used when in polite company. It was the laugh her enemies—her soon-to-be-dead enemies—heard on the battlefield.

“Funny!” She scoffed. “As always, Lord Agravaine, you are misinformed. This is not only Merlin, obstacle and pain-in-the-ass extraordinaire, this is _Emrys,_ mortal enemy mine and the most powerful warlock this world has ever seen. His magic cannot be so easily banished as his mind and memories. Understand this: he is a blank slate, an empty man. How is he to know that he ought to be killing me, rather than helping me?”

“But what if his memories should return?” simpered Agravaine.

“Do you doubt me?” she snarled in response. “My spell shall not fail.”

“No, my lady! No, never. I would never doubt such a powerful sorceress as you. I merely meant to caution against any decisions made in haste!”

“Indeed! You question my judgment, then?”

“No!”

“Then you think my decisions will be hasty and unwise?”

“No, my lady, I swear not!”

A mounting pressure shuddered through her chest. She’d accepted Agravaine as an agent out of convenience, yes, but she could find a replacement. His position as Arthur’s uncle was not so easily replicated, but a simple charm could change a lineage. Agravaine, however, seemed not to understand how disposable he was.

“Then what,” she bit out, “do you mean?”

“Only that we should wait until we know how Arthur reacts to his servant being missing at all! We can hardly act without information, my lady, as you know as well as I—” Morgana took a step forward, forcing Agravaine back. _“Better,_ my lady, as you know _better_ than I, to be sure! I shall return to Camelot at once and report on just that!”

“You shall do nothing I do not command of you!” she thundered back. The tensions exploded through her hands and threw Agravaine into the wall behind him. “Caution?! Information?! _Waiting?!_ I do not need your needling voice to tell me the value of that, but I have it in spades, lest you forget that I grew up with Camelot’s thrice damned Prince Regent! _You,_ on the other hand, popped up out of nowhere with nothing but a tenuous claim to Arthur’s ear. Do not presume to tell me what I may or may not do to him, nor to say that you know him better than I.”

Agravaine groaned as he tried to rise from the floor. Morgana made no move to help him.

“I… My apologies, my lady.” He rubbed the back of his head, and Morgana didn’t miss the red blur of his hand. “It was never my intention to presume.”

“No,” she drawled, “only to manipulate to your own purposes. Come here, where I can sew up your head. If anyone asked questions, it would be your problem, and I can’t have you whining about it when you crawl to me for help.”

Dutifully, he offered the back of his head to her. “I would never, my lady.”

“Hush, and make no attempt to rewrite history, or I shall throw you to the wolves.” With a wave of her hand, the cut was gone. “Wash the blood out, and begone. Report to me on Arthur’s wellbeing at your nearest convenience. I shall be moving, soon, and will leave a scrying bowl here. You won’t see me in person again until Camelot is mine.”

“But my lady—”

“I’m not arguing on this. Go.”

She watched him hustle out of the hovel and away on the tentative forest path she’d been making after months of walking to the same place. She wouldn’t miss the hovel. It had been a desperate choice, a bad one. She’d probably have some time to set up for her newest, undoubtedly most devastating scheme, but not as much as she would’ve liked.

No matter. Without Emrys to protect Camelot, it was vulnerable and would only get worse.

She smiled, thinking of her brother crippled by grief and the country slowly falling apart. Once it was so far gone that every peasant on their farm and every merchant on the street and every noble in their estate was suffering from the damage Arthur had done to the infrastructure, she would strike with her newest weapon. And after Merlin— _Emrys_ brought the country to its knees, she would swoop in, ever the benevolent, prodigal daughter of beloved King Uther, and lay all the blame at the feet of her pawn. How the people would love her! She’d build a country out of ashes, out of the bones and burial of her family and citizens, out of chaos. Order would rule; _her order._ And Emrys would be, summarily, not her problem.

It was a perfect plan.

It just required a long, slow build. Emrys would have to be loyal to her without question, but still superficially Merlin enough (which really came down only to his appearance; if she had to listen to a chipper servant for the next year, she’d throw the whole plan out the window just to slit his stupid, meddlesome throat) to devastate anyone who saw the change in him. Oh, what she’d give to be a fly on the wall when Emrys killed Arthur! She could imagine, of course, the wails of ‘traitor’ and the desperation in Arthur’s voice, which would be oh-so-sweet to bear witness to, but to be there in person—!

It was too delicious a prospect to pass up.

She looked at the corpse of the druid disdainfully. What kind of idiot, who’d managed to withstand far more torture than she’d ever expected him to, gave up information after being confronted with the very person he was trying to hide?

Well, he was just clutter now. No point in doing anything over-the-top with him; it would be satisfactory to dump his body in the surrounding woods.

She snapped her fingers, and the husk of Merlin crumpled from the air to the floor in an undignified heap. She hauled the druid over her shoulder and marched out of the hovel. He would be found eventually, but that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. As long as the druids didn’t blame _her_ for his death, who cared?

Once she found a suitable spot, she dumped the body, half-covered it in leaves, and moved on.

She’d have to be more clever with Emrys. He was dangerous, no matter how many memories he had. His magic alone made him a risk to her, even ignoring the dozens and dozens of prophecies stating that he would kill her. Hopefully, this would avoid all of that, leaving him as a low-risk liability. The dangers, she decided, were far outweighed by the damage she could inflict with such a powerhouse in her arsenal.

Something quiet and almost dead in the depths of her mind murmured that this was a person who had been kind to her, someone who had said they were friends.

That was smothered quickly. Merlin had hidden his magic from her, even after her own confession. He’d poisoned her and wreaked havoc on every project she and her sister had ever strived for; what was she supposed to do after that, just _forgive_ the bastard? No way in hell.

He deserved every pang of agony that was coming for him, every iota of suffering he would inflict. Maybe one day, _one day,_ he wouldn’t be Merlin anymore. She had to keep telling herself that: it wasn’t Merlin, it wasn’t Merlin, it wasn’t Merlin. But it _was._ To some degree, the body was still the man who had caused her to suffer needlessly within Camelot’s walls. For her plan to work, he’d have to never be Merlin again, but it was… it was too hard to say that _now._ He had the same face, the same stupid peasant clothing. There was no way around it: there would be a pretty brutal adjustment period. She’d have to keep him asleep for a while, then, while she internalized the idea that this man was a new one, someone to inspire loyalty and friendship in.

But it couldn’t be that hard. She’d fooled the entire court for years, playing the innocent, the damsel, the ward. No one had even though twice about it.

Well.

Except for Merlin.

He had always had an unfortunate streak of common sense.

Now, though, none of that would matter. His mind was hers to change and nurture. There was nothing that could stop her: not Merlin, not Emrys, not her sister, not Agravaine, not Arthur. Not that Arthur was ever much of a threat; she could beat him in a sword fight, and there was no competition at all when it came to magic.

She would finally have an _ally_ again. Someone to truly confide in. Emrys could be that for her, be the replacement for her sister and Gwen and everyone who’d left her.

Emrys would be not her doom, but her greatest weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's Morgana's perspective! Thank you for reading this deranged woman's thoughts and I hope you enjoyed it! Next up will be Merlin's perspective and just what, the fuck, Morgana has actually done to him.


	3. Chapter One: Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of a recovery and a revelation. Morgana rewrites history.

Soft.

Bright?

No, not bright. Not bright.

Soft, yes. Bright, no. What—

Moving over there—closer, closer—shadow! A shadow! 

Jerking upwards—a scream clawing the throat when it left—shattering— _hurt, hurt, **pain**_ —what was it—!?

“—rys! _Emrys!_ Stop!”

Another scream. His throat, or another’s?

What was he seeing?

Two hands holding his and the scream continued until it turned to choking coughs. A gag, another and another—it _hurt…_

“Please, it’s fine, I promise.” One hand let go to hold his head. He didn’t want it there, he didn’t _like_ it, whatever _it_ was, but he only flopped forwards. “Listen, Emrys. Listen to me. Can you do that?”

His cheek was squished against a soft thing. Shirt?

He opened his mouth (that was how sounds were made, maybe), and all that came out was a burbling thing. Was his tongue weird? Or was the problem that it couldn’t be weird, now? It only sat in his mouth. He thought it was meant to move. But… it wasn’t.

He tried again.

More still tongue.

“Emrys?” came the soft voice. “Emrys, are you alright?”

He couldn’t say.

He wanted to. He wanted to say things. But his tongue wouldn’t. His mouth couldn’t. He’d screamed before _(he’d_ screamed, had he not? _His_ throat hurt, not someone else’s) and all he could think of now was to do it again. Nothing else? No other ideas?

He knocked his head against the shirt.

“Does that mean you’re listening to me,” asked the voice, but he was only catching every few words, “or that you haven’t the faintest idea what to do?”

He knocked his head again.

“Alright.” Hands pushed him back into the soft, and he could make out blurs of color… he thought. “Jeez, you’re worse than I thought. I’m so sorry this happened, Emrys, I should’ve been there to help and if I had, maybe this never would’ve happened.” A flat hand rubbed his shoulder, and something else picked up his shirt. He had no idea he was wearing one. “I hope you forgive me.”

He lifted his own hands, trying to find some _other_ way of talking, but they flopped and had no strength in them.

“What’s wrong, Emrys?”

His stomach growled. And yes, _he_ hadn’t said it, but it got the message across.

“Oh, you’re hungry.” A pat. “I’ll be right back, my friend, so don’t you worry. I’ll go find something nice and easy to digest.”

He fell asleep before any food came.

* * *

The shadow with a shirt returned again and again, but they didn’t talk much. He couldn’t respond, though he’d taken to experimenting with his tongue when he had the chance.

This day was a lot of days after he’d first woken up. Probably. But he couldn’t be sure.

Still, he didn’t scream when he saw the shadow.

“Emrys,” came the voice, “are you awake? I’d like to talk to you. I brought food.”

“‘ake,” he managed.

“Oh!” The shadow stopped. “Oh. You can talk again.”

“Ah. ‘alk.”

The shadow settled on the edge of his soft thing. His… He knew the word for it, but he _didn’t,_ and he didn’t like the feeling. He tried to tap the soft thing with his fingers, but he couldn’t do it with any force.

“I guess you still can’t talk very well, then. But maybe you’re just thirsty; your mouth is almost certainly dry.” Something rattled. “Here. Water. You really need it.”

He tried to focus on the blur that the shadow was holding. It was… flat. There were things on it, all different shapes. He couldn’t tell what was supposed to be water. In fact, he couldn’t remember how water was supposed to be contained. He made another effort to move his hand, but barely succeeded, and turned to his mouth instead.

“Aht. Aht… er. Ahter. Aht’r.”

“Water?”

 _”Aht’r!”_ He couldn’t think of another way to make himself clear. The sounds stirred some strange feeling in him, but he didn’t know what it was. “Aht’r.”

“Well, I’m telling you, Emrys, that water’s right here.” The shadow let go of the tray and for a moment, he thought it would fall to the floor. Instead, it hovered in the air still, even steadier than when the shadow had held it. The shadow lifted its arm and was pointing at one of the shapes, but it was hard to tell which.

He tried to make another noise, but wasn’t successful. He couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t find any way to communicate… what _could_ he do?

“Emrys,” the voice said, without any exasperation or anger, “it’s this one, see? Right here.”

He grunted, but his hand still wouldn’t move.

“Do you want help, Emrys? Can you not pick it up?” The voice seemed concerned, more than anything else, and he knew that he was disappointing them. He couldn’t figure out how to _stop_ disappointing them, stop being this useless lump on a soft thing he couldn’t even name because of how useless _he_ was. It was all pointless anyway; what use was he to anyone if he couldn’t _move?_ Why was he even where he was, _wherever_ he was? Why didn’t he _know_ anything?!

There was a clink, a bang, an explosion. Shards of ceramic sped through the air then stopped, hovering in mid-air.

He was wet, and his brain was doing something (not that he knew _what_ it was doing), and the shadow hadn’t moved yet.

“Oh,” the shadow breathed. “I’m glad that’s still intact.”

Intact? _Intact?_ Nothing whatsoever was intact. He’d blown up the cups… or he thought he had.

“Oh,” he said back.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh… ka.”

“Emrys, I can’t tell if you’re just echoing me or not. Can you say something, _anything,_ that I haven’t said before? Something to show me that it’s you in there?”

“Mm.” There was a word, on the tip of his tongue, that seemed so vital, so important. It was more complicated than the other things he had (unsuccessfully) attempted in the past, but it felt like the core of his being, somehow. _“Mm.”_ He tried to move his hand again, to aid himself in some way, but he couldn’t.

“What do you mean, Emrys?” The shadow seemed… concerned, now. Or confused. He wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as patient as before.

“Madge…”

The shadow exhaled, like this was all such a great relief even though he hadn’t gotten the full word out. He still _felt_ like a failure, even if his mouth was slowly easing into something almost understandable to the shadow that talked to him. “Yes,” they said, “that’s right! Magic.” Then they slowed their speech and enunciated with all the clarity they seemed to be able to muster. “Ma-dg-ic. Magic! You have magic, Emrys, just like I do. We’re the same.” The voice turned sad. “Or we will be, as soon as what that _damned Pendragon_ did is fixed.”

The word ‘Pendragon’ seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“Pen,” he echoed, without as much trouble as with the ‘m.’ “Hmm.”

“You remember them?”

If only he could move! “Nn.”

“Oh, I see. You just… recognized it? You made some connection to it? Anything at all?” The shadow seemed desperate. He wanted to shrug, but his shoulders wouldn’t move like that. 

“Nn.” 

“Maybe this will have to wait until you’re well. I don’t want to overwhelm you when you’re…” The shadow sighed and slumped. “When you’re like this. It’s a complex thing, Emrys, and I don’t want to rush you and do more damage or… not do enough and leave you like this for the rest of your life. That’s just wrong. _This_ is wrong. You shouldn’t _be_ like this!” The shadow’s voice went shrill. He felt as though this was his fault, somehow, for disappointing them, but he was trying his best. Surely the shadow wouldn’t expect more than that. 

“Nn!” 

“No what, Emrys?” 

And that was a cruel question, wasn’t it. How could he possibly hope to convey to this person what he wanted from them when he could barely manage to say two consecutive syllables? He couldn’t move his hand to demand that the shadow stay with him and he couldn’t parse the strange shapes and shades that blurred through his vision well enough to even understand where he was. 

He didn’t recognize the high-pitched keening as his own until he felt hands grip his shoulders and shake him. 

“Emrys! Emrys, stop this. Nothing will harm you here, I promise. On my father’s grave, I swear that nothing here will harm you.” The person the hands were attached to pulled him into a hug which he didn’t have the strength to return. All he could do was lean into the form of the only voice he’d ever known and wait for reassurance. For answers. For the rest of his life to unfold and maybe, _finally,_ make some sense. “You should get some rest, Emrys, really. I’ll be back soon, with more food, but you’re… you’re not well. I don’t want anything more to happen to you. Please, Emrys, sleep.” 

He found that he couldn’t even manage a response and he faded away from the voice, wondering what might happen to him next. 

* * *

He woke later on a bed. He knew, though he wasn’t sure how he knew, that what he was lying on was called a bed and that he had softer, smaller beds under his head and those were called pillows. 

He still couldn’t see very well. He looked around, but still struggled to make out definite shapes to give names to. There were colors all around him, in different configurations, but it was hard to remember what they were called. Everything was fuzzy, indistinct. Nothing in his line of sight was familiar or recognizable. But he knew that those things were there, and that was more than he could say for the last time he’d woken up. He knew that he was a _thing_ of some sort that existed in the same place as other things, but he was a thing that was supposed to be able to talk and move and see. Still, he wasn’t. He was mute and immobile and nearly blind. Maybe that was how other things felt. 

He wanted… 

He wanted. 

He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he did. 

But he couldn’t get what he wanted since he still couldn’t _move._ He could only lie in this bed, wishing he could call out, express his imprisonment, scream for help. His mind was healing but he was trapped in it, a small light in the dark cavern of his body.

So all he could do was wait for the shadow to come back. 

Time stretched out, interminable, creeping along, dragging him back into sleep. 

* * *

The next time he woke, it was to a hand shaking him back and forth. He knew this hand; it was the only hand he knew. 

“Emrys,” said the shadow, “Emrys, wake up. Are you alright now? You were crying.” 

He wanted to touch his face, to try and confirm what his friend was saying, but his hand felt like lead. It barely lifted from its position at his side, though his friend clasped it in their own, careful and gentle. The other hand brushed at his cheek, clearing it of tears when he couldn’t. 

“Have you lost the ability to speak again? I was worrying you might relapse. I brought more water; I was hoping we could try going over everything again. Here,” the shadow rearranged him into an upright position, “I’ll help you with it. I know your muscles aren’t working very well. Do you think you can swallow for me, just so I know I won’t inadvertently drown you?” 

He swallowed, still confused. The shadow was talking so quickly… 

“Good, good. Here we go, bottoms up!” 

Cool ceramic touched his mouth and liquid— _water,_ actual water—started to flow down his throat. 

It was a relief until he couldn’t swallow it anymore, forcing him to cough and spray sweet, precious water all over the place. It hurt a little bit and he felt unbearably embarrassed to have just coughed water all over the only person he knew, but there wasn’t much he could do. All his progress with his voice had evaporated as he slept and he could barely understand what he was seeing and he couldn’t _drink water_ without help. He groaned because he couldn’t do anything else. 

“I know,” said the shadow sympathetically. “I know. It’s hard and it’s frustrating, isn’t it. I feel awful seeing you like this. I wish you could just tell me what you need so I could fix it for you, but here we are.” It sighed. 

He grunted, hoping it understood that he was listening. 

“Alright, let’s try this since you’re a little more, uh, lucid than you have been. I’ll ask you yes-or-no questions and you just grunt to answer me. Let’s have one grunt for yes and two for no. Do you think that will work for you?” 

He grunted once. 

“I’ll just take that as a yes for now.” The shadow drew back, no longer holding him. At least a surface behind him kept him sitting up, since he couldn’t trust his own body to do that. “Okay, let’s start with the basics. Do you remember who I am?” 

He grunted once then, with great difficulty, managed to do it again. 

“Right. I was afraid of that. Um…” The shadow trailed off, as if thinking about how to continue. “I’m Morgana. We’ve been friends for ages now; I think it’s been about five or six years. You helped me when I found out I had magic and we’ve been friends ever since. You were there for me when my sister died. I never would have survived living in Camelot if it hadn’t been for you; do you remember Camelot?” 

He grunted twice again. 

“Ah. Well, it’s this kingdom we lived in where magic—the… force, I suppose you could say, that you used to blow up the cups a week ago—is illegal. People get killed for it. It’s nauseating, really, and I’m a little glad, really, that you can’t remember people burning on the pyre for a little trick.” The shadow—Morgana—stopped and took a deep breath. “We left Camelot together. A few years ago. It’s a dangerous place that drowns children and I—nevermind. The point is, the Pendragons, who you recognized a week ago, run Camelot. They’re the royal family. And the Prince Regent, Arthur, did this to you. He and his knights attacked you in the Valley of Fallen Kings, where we were hiding, and hit you with a mace. Maybe you hit your head after that or the mace was illegally enchanted, I don’t know. But given what I’ve seen so far… you lost everything. You don’t remember anything and you barely move and your speech is…” She sighed. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault. It’s the fault of Camelot and I’m just frustrated. We’ll get you all fixed up.” 

Morgana’s hand knocked gently on his head. 

He grunted once for her. He understood this much. He understood that his pain was the fault of Camelot, which would have hanged him if given the chance. 

“Now do you remember your name? Who you are?” 

That he had to give two grunts for. Any kind of memory was beyond him. 

“Your name… your name is Emrys.” A chill snaked down his spine at the name. He’d heard it before from Morgana, but somehow never connected it to himself. “You’re the most powerful warlock alive; magic incarnate, according to the druids. The druids are these nomadic, magical people. And you’re their lord, their king. They’re very worried for you, since they have this prophecy, this prediction, that you’ll deliver them from persecution and unite their disparate tribes. Not to mention save everyone with magic that Camelot has been hunting down and killing.” 

He grunted. He understood. 

The Pendragons controlled Camelot. Camelot hunted and abused people with magic, like him. He was supposed to protect them. 

The root of the problem were the Pendragons. If he killed them, everything would be fixed. 

Even including, maybe, him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Merlin sure is having a rough time of it here! He will actually _do_ stuff soon, but right now the poor guy can't even get out of bed.
> 
> I edited this myself, so any errors are mine!


	4. Chapter Two: Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin and Morgana figure out how to live (with each other).

Morgana helped Merlin—Emrys, now, she had to be consistent even in her head—out of the tent she’d made for him. For the first few months, he’d been almost entirely immobile. His speech was still a little spotty and he sometimes had trouble understanding what was being said to him, but he could pick things up now, even if he couldn’t really feed himself.

She couldn’t find it in herself to hate him.

He wasn’t Merlin anymore, that was for sure. He was a lot more trusting than Merlin had ever been and he already hated the Pendragons and Camelot so much that she was beginning to wonder if his loyalty to them had been a facade. He called her “Gana” in a childish, garbled voice and reached for her when she came into the room. He picked at his chest, where he was quickly developing a scar from the mace, and asked her questions about the birds he heard but had never seen. He relied on his magic more than was probably healthy for his recovery, but it was certainly a nice change. Mostly, he used it to pick things up, even things she would really rather be left on the ground.

Truthfully, Emrys was a man trying to expand out of his childhood as quickly as possible. Horror of horrors, Morgana even found him _likable._ It was easier to tell herself that this really was the fault of Camelot. If they hadn’t pressed his pride and his loyalty to his own kind out of him, she wouldn’t have been forced to do what she did. She could have earned his friendship naturally, never stripping him down to this raw helplessness. She’d never lied to him, only told him the story of what he could have been if he’d been better from the start.

She _hadn’t_ lied to him and she never _would._

As long as he kept clinging easily to her friendship. If he strayed, wandered off to any kind of… _undesirables,_ she would do whatever she had to in order to keep him at her side. He wouldn’t survive anywhere else, not like he was now. If he ran off, he’d be killed by any passing monster or knight with a hint of malice about them. Not that he could run.

So here she was, holding his arms as he staggered out of the tent, squinting at everything around him. It was brighter than anything she’d exposed him to so far, so she made sure he took it slow, carefully supporting his weight so he didn’t take it all upon himself. He would be her greatest weapon, she still whole-heartedly believed that, but he had to be able to walk first.

“Be careful,” she cautioned him for the nth time as he stumbled.

“Am,” he snapped petulantly, trying to move a lot faster than she really thought wise. “Fine! ‘m _fine!”_

“Like you really want me to let go right now,” she snarked back. But he stared her down and nodded, so she pulled back and let him have his shot.

And he fell over, which was exactly what she’d expected.

She caught him, because that was the role she’d cast herself in and she refused to break character. “That’s a really bad idea, Emrys. This is only the second time I’ve gotten you out of bed, so don’t get cocky. It’ll get you killed.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, but apparently accepted it.

She guided him back inside, determined to get him walking within the week.

It was fine. They weren’t on a timetable. And the longer she kept Emrys from Camelot, the more agony Arthur was in, which would bring her more satisfaction. She could wait.

* * *

Things were going slowly. It was irritating, but Morgana always said that patience was key. After all, if he couldn’t be patient, he was going to run into a lot of other problems involving his health and general ability to move, eat, or speak. He didn’t want to be a burden, after all.

Not that Morgana ever said he was. She was very patient, patient enough for the both of them, calmly encouraging him when he wanted to do nothing less than set whatever he was working with on fire. Where he was eager to move around, to start walking on his own, running, climbing or riding or _something,_ Morgana told him to slow down, to take his time, to wait for his strength to return. Still, it had been months and he wasn’t keen on lazing around for much longer. After all, using his muscles would hasten their return to strength, surely. It wasn’t helped by this motionlessness.

But haste had yet to help him. His speech was slowly returning but too much strain—from _talking,_ for the goddess’ sake—buried it back in his stomach. He’d gotten better at understanding what he was seeing, too, but the outdoors were almost too much for him. How could he hope to exist if he couldn’t handle the world outside his tent?

He would continue to try, though. He would ask Morgana to take him outside each day, until he was used to the light. He would spurn her hand until he could walk on his own. He would take it into his own shaking hands.

If he killed himself along the way… maybe that was the price he had to pay to kill Arthur Pendragon.

* * *

When she first put a sword in Merlin’s hands, Morgana had not had high hopes. He had never been particularly competent with it in the past, but she wanted to distance him from his old experiences. If she let him fall back into old habits, if she led him back into service or to a farm, he might become… confused. He might release his grip on reality and seek some kind of peace or… or _ease_ in memories that weren’t quite his and weren’t quite foreign, which could be very dangerous for her.

And for him. Obviously.

So when he had become strong enough to hold himself up and to carry small weights as he walked, she gave him a simple sword and told him he had once been a master of it. This, she told him sadly, was not his sword. That had been taken by Arthur as a trophy, for it had been magical, enchanted by a master blacksmith who had owed him a favor, and not even a fool would leave it in the hands of the enemy.

Merlin— _no,_ she corrected herself for the umpteenth time, _Emrys_ —had immediately swung the sword with reckless gusto, heedless of her warnings about its weight.

He fell over again.

“Listen, it works a lot better if you don’t stand like that,” she told him once she’d helped him back to his feet. She demonstrated a wider stance, with her feet a little wider than her shoulders. Emrys had been standing like a servant in a hall, his feet pressed together. “You’ll be more stable like that.”

He copied her, his gaze flicking back and forth between his feet and hers as he adjusted himself. It seemed to be one of his non-verbal days; he hadn’t said a word since he’d woken her, only communicated vague messages through gestures and mime. As far as she could tell, though, he didn’t lose the ability to understand her at the same time, so they could still have lessons like this together.

“Just like that. We can work on diversifying your stances later. Now, this is a single-handed sword, so it’s a little lighter. Just swing it, give it a try. I’m going to get out of your way.”

She retreated a few yards, watching him carefully all the while. He had yet to do anything really unexpected, but it was always better to err on the side of caution. Whatever he had cloaked himself with in his last life, he had always been Emrys, a man—no, an entity, a _being_ —with the riskiest propensity for chaos and doom. _Her_ doom, specifically, but she had faith in her ability to rein him in and turn that doom against a more preferable enemy.

Emrys swung the sword again, a little more tentatively.

“That’s a good start.”

Over the next few weeks, she slowly built his skills up to a standard that justified the use of a target, after which he started to demonstrate real promise as a swordsman. Not necessarily any kind of skill, but he was still learning, of course, and she could not expect anything too quick.

With that caveat, he was still progressing at a remarkable pace and demonstrating some surprising natural ability besides.

Privately, perhaps so privately she did not know it herself, she feared the testing of his magic.

* * *

For all her apprehension, the emergence of Emrys’ magic in its full force was inevitable, though it was delayed considerably by his rather convenient insistence on developing his meager physical abilities, for which he restrained his magic with a show of control Morgana would not have expected from him. It limited its development (if it needed to development… she still wasn’t sure how his magic had suffered from her ‘interference,’ per se) to basic kinetic use. That was normal enough for a child. She knew where to go from there.

The candle had been the obvious choice, and magic had the singular advantage of requiring no physical strain, so Morgana simply left Emrys in his bed (knowing, of course, that he could not yet leave it without her help) and asked him to light his bedside candle.

At first, Emrys had only given it a slightly bewildered look, apparently not comprehending what she wanted, and turned over to go to sleep.

This recurred until she decided that the best kind of instruction would be a demonstration, which she provided. She lit and extinguished the candle for over an hour before Emrys had mumbled something about the point and waved a limp hand in the direction of the dark wick.

Not only did it light, it created a jet of fire that licked at the top of the tent, which was not short. Hurriedly, she’d put it out and cast upwards of two dozen mending spells on things in and around the tent, only to turn around and see Emrys fast asleep. As much as the candle experiment hinted at untapped power, he was still tired and healing and pitifully weak. So she didn’t try again for some time.

It was only a few weeks later that a massive thunderstorm rolled in, pelting the tent with rain for hours, which settled Morgana into a restful, dreamless sleep, so that she did not realize that Emrys had left until she heard lightning strike the ground outside.

She darted out of the tent to see him calling a bolt of electricity to his hand, giggling like a child.

She summoned a shield and crept closer to him. Was this a memory sparking in his hand or new life?

“Emrys,” she said, trying to hide her fear, “what are you doing?”

His voice was garbled, but he managed one intelligible word: “Magic!”

“That’s—” She cut herself off to steady her voice. “That’s very impressive, my friend. Why don’t you, uh, put the lightning down and we can go back inside and get to sleep?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “No, Gana! Magic.” His worlds bumbled into rounded, confused syllables before he recovered his voice. “Outside, I can… do magic. Inside, there are—” he waved his empty hand, “fires.”

That was true enough, but the lightning was still there, and still very unnerving.

“We can do magic tomorrow, Emrys. Please dismiss the lightning and go back to bed, okay? I’ll help you back, just put the lightning down and take my hand.”

Emrys looked first to the crackling energy in his hand, then to Morgana again. He frowned, but curled his hand into a fist, accepting the electricity into his skin, and reached for Morgana. She hesitated to touch the hand that had held such terrifying power, but there was nothing for it. She had to keep up appearances. She had to risk it, though. If Emrys knew she feared him, he would certainly start to doubt her intentions. She had to be his friend.

She took his hand and led him back to the tent and to bed.


End file.
